Must-see attractions in Wales

  • Caerphilly Castle, Caerphilly, Glamorgan, Wales

    Caerphilly Castle

    Southeast Wales

    You could be forgiven for thinking that Caerphilly Castle – with its profusion of towers and crenellations reflected in a duck-filled lake – was a film…

  • Caernarfon Castle Reflections

    Caernarfon Castle

    Anglesey & the North Coast

    Majestic Caernarfon Castle was built by Edward I between 1283 and 1330 as a military stronghold, seat of government and royal palace. Designed and mainly…

  • Couple visiting the castle.Conwy Castle.Cadw Sites.World Heritage Sites.SAMN: CN004.NGR: SH783774.Conwy.North.Castles.Medieval.Defence.Historic Sites

    Conwy Castle

    Anglesey & the North Coast

    Caernarfon is more complete, Harlech more dramatically positioned and Beaumaris more technically perfect, yet out of the four castles that compose the…

  • Bodnant Garden

    Anglesey & the North Coast

    Laid out in 1875 and painstakingly landscaped over 150 years, Bodnant is one of Wales’ most beautiful gardens. Lord Aberconway of the McLaren family …

  • Cardiff Castle, Cardiff, Monmouthshire, Wales, United Kingdom, Europe

    Cardiff Castle

    Cardiff

    There's a medieval keep at its heart, but it's the later additions to Cardiff Castle that really capture the imagination. In Victorian times, extravagant…

  • National Museum and Gallery at night, Cardiff, Wales

    National Museum Cardiff

    Cardiff

    Devoted mainly to natural history and art, this grand neoclassical building is the centrepiece of the seven institutions dotted around the country that…

  • Tintern Abbey, Wales

    Tintern Abbey

    Southeast Wales

    The haunting riverside ruins of this sprawling monastic complex have inspired poets and artists through the centuries, most notably William Wordsworth,…

  • St Fagans National History Museum

    Cardiff

    Historic buildings from all over the country have been dismantled and re-erected in the semirural surrounds of St Fagans village, 5 miles west of central…

  • Aerial View.Carreg Cennen.Castles.Historic Sites

    Carreg Cennen

    Parc Cenedlaethol Bannau Brycheiniog

    Dramatically perched atop a steep limestone crag, high above the River Cennen, are the brooding ruins of Wales' ultimate romantic castle, visible for…

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    Bute Park

    Cardiff

    Flanked by the castle and the River Taff, Bute Park was donated to the city along with the castle in 1947. With Sophia Gardens, Pontcanna Fields and…

  • Harlech Castle

    Snowdonia National Park (Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri)

    Edward I finished this intimidating yet aesthetically pleasing castle in 1289, the southernmost of his 'iron ring' of fortresses designed to keep the…

  • National Botanic Garden of Wales

    Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire

    Concealed in the rolling Tywi valley countryside, this lavish complex opened in 2000 and is still maturing. Formerly an aristocratic estate, the garden…

  • Erddig

    Snowdonia & the Llŷn

    For a glimpse of the life of the British upper class in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the 'upstairs-downstairs' social hierarchy of their bygone world,…

  • Chepstow Castle

    Southeast Wales

    Imposing Chepstow Castle perches atop a limestone cliff overhanging the river, guarding the main river crossing from England into South Wales. It is one…

  • Pen-y-Fan

    Parc Cenedlaethol Bannau Brycheiniog

    Ascending Pen-y-Fan (886m), the tallest peak in the Brecon Beacons, is one of the most popular hikes in the park (around 350,000 people make the climb…

  • Dinefwr

    Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire

    This idyllic, 324-hectare, beautifully landscaped estate, immediately west of Llandeilo, incorporates a deer park, pasture, woods, an Iron Age fort, the…

  • Worms Head

    Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire

    The western extremity of the Gower is guarded by this mile-long promontory, which turns into an island at high tide. Worms Head takes its name from the…

  • Big Pit National Coal Museum

    Southeast Wales

    Fascinating Big Pit provides an opportunity to explore a real coal mine and get a taste of what life was like for the miners who worked here from 1880 to…

  • Aberglasney Gardens

    Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire

    Wandering through these formal walled gardens feels a bit like walking into a Jane Austen novel. They date originally from Elizabethan times, have evolved…

  • St Issui's Church

    Parc Cenedlaethol Bannau Brycheiniog

    Halfway up a thickly forested hillside in the Vale of Eywas, this tiny 11th-century church is like a time capsule of Welsh faith and culture, buried too…

  • Penrhyn Castle

    Anglesey & the North Coast

    Funded by the vast profits from the slate mine of Caribbean sugar-plantation owner and anti-abolitionist Baron Penrhyn, and extended and embellished by…

  • Dylan Thomas Boathouse

    Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire

    Dylan Thomas, his wife Caitlin and their three children lived in this cliff-clinging house from 1949 to 1953. It's a beautiful setting, looking out over…

  • Gwydyr Forest

    Snowdonia National Park (Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri)

    The 28-sq-mile Gwydyr Forest, planted since the 1920s with oak, beech and larch, encircles Betws-y-Coed and is scattered with the remnants of lead and…

  • National Slate Museum

    Snowdonia National Park (Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri)

    Even if you're not enraptured by industrial museums, ignore the dull-sounding name and check this one out. At Dinorwig Quarry much of the slate was carved…

  • Bodnant Welsh Food

    Anglesey & the North Coast

    On the west side of the vast Bodnant Estate, a collection of lavishly restored 18th-century farm buildings now operates as Bodnant Welsh Food. One of the…

  • Garn Goch

    Parc Cenedlaethol Bannau Brycheiniog

    You're likely to have the impressive remains of Garn Goch to yourself. One of the largest Iron Age sites in Wales, it comprises a smaller hill fort…

  • Llanthony Priory

    Parc Cenedlaethol Bannau Brycheiniog

    Halfway along the impossibly beautiful Vale of Ewyas lie the atmospheric ruins of this Augustinian priory, set among pasture and wooded hills by the River…

  • Llechwedd Slate Caverns

    Snowdonia National Park (Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri)

    Blaenau's main attraction takes you into the bowels of a Victorian slate mine. You descend the UK's steepest mining cable railway into the 1846 network of…

  • Cellb

    Snowdonia National Park (Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri)

    Recently opened in the Edwardian-era police station (hence 'Cell B'), this multifunction centre hosts everything from yoga to live bands to screenings in…

  • Clyne Gardens

    Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire

    Spanning 20 hectares, these magnificent gardens are particularly impressive in spring, when the azaleas and rhododendrons are at their most spectacular…

  • Millennium Stadium and River Taff, Cardiff.

    Principality Stadium

    Cardiff

    Also known as Millennium Stadium ('Principality' is the current naming-rights sponsor), this spectacular venue squats like a stranded spaceship on the…

  • St Mary's Priory Church

    Southeast Wales

    Although you wouldn't guess it from the outside, this large stone church has been described as the 'Westminster Abbey of South Wales' because of the…

  • 500px Photo ID: 68922741 - Views around Cardiff Bay and the Millennium Waterfront and the Roald Dahl Plass South Wales UK

    Wales Millennium Centre

    Cardiff

    The centrepiece and symbol of Cardiff Bay's regeneration is the £106-million Wales Millennium Centre, an architectural masterpiece of stacked Welsh slate…

  • Tretower Court & Castle

    Parc Cenedlaethol Bannau Brycheiniog

    Originally the home of the Vaughan family, Tretower gives you two historic buildings for the price of one: the sturdy circular Norman keep, now roofless…

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    Castell Coch

    Cardiff

    Cardiff Castle's fanciful little brother sits perched atop a thickly wooded crag on the northern fringes of Cardiff. It was the summer retreat of the…

  • Tredegar House near Newport in Gwent. Popular tourist attraction and set in a beautiful 90 acre park, Tredegar House is one of the best examples of a 17th century Charles II mansion in Britain.

    Tredegar House

    Southeast Wales

    The seat of the Morgan family for more than 500 years, Tredegar House is a stone and red-brick 17th-century building set amid extensive gardens, 2 miles…

  • Three Cliffs Bay

    Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire

    Three Cliffs Bay is named for the pyramid-like, triple-pointed crag pierced by a natural arch that juts out into the water at its eastern point. It's…

  • Raglan Castle

    Southeast Wales

    The last great medieval castle to be built in Wales, Raglan was designed more as a swaggering declaration of wealth and power than a defensive fortress. A…

  • Welsh Mining Experience

    Southeast Wales

    Until its last pit closed in 1990, the Rhondda Valley was synonymous with coal mining. That industrial heritage is celebrated within the buildings of the…

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